Bishop Stephen Blaire delivers a blessing to the volunteers with the League of United Latin American Citizens Stockton Council.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

Bishop Stephen Blaire delivers a blessing to the volunteers with...

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Bishop Stephen Blaire visits with a few of the volunteers with the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Stockton Council who are putting together 1,500 food baskets for those in need at the Commodities Warehouse on Saturday Dec. 15, 2012 in Stockton, Calif. Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, Calif. one of the poorest regions of the country and he serves as the head of the politically influential US Conference of Bishops. He's very concerned about poverty -- and is worried about the effects of the fiscal cliff on the poor. But some of his fellow bishops don't agree, as the bishops declined to pass a statement on the economy.

Presiding over the Diocese of Stockton, one of the poorest areas of the country, Catholic Bishop Stephen Blaire sees the human costs of poverty every day. Long lines at food banks. Homeless folks on the streets. Recently, as he does before Christmas every year, Blaire blessed thousands of food baskets to be given to needy local families.

But translating the church's outreach to the poor into a political statement on poverty has proven more difficult. As Congress ponders cuts in safety-net programs from food stamps to Medicare to help balance the budget and avoid the "fiscal cliff," the politically influential U.S. Conference of Bishops has been unable to reach agreement on a statement representing one of its core values: caring for the poor.

Such statements usually pass easily, and the bishops use them as a political cudgel to highlight the moral authority of the nation's largest denomination.

"I was disappointed that we couldn't produce that document," said Blaire, who has become the bishops' point person on poverty issues in his role as chairman of its Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development. "But our committee is going to take a different approach" and create smaller statements on poverty issues over the next few months, he said.

Growing division

The struggle to get the necessary two-thirds majority of the nation's Catholic bishops to agree on a statement on poverty is illustrative of growing political divisions among the bishops. That dissension could have an impact on the conference's political lobbying power in 2013, when the bishops want to have a loud voice on such major issues as immigration reform and how contraceptive care is covered under the federal health care law.

Their inability to pass a poverty statement at its November meeting in Baltimore is raising questions about whether the bishops will be able to remain unified on other issues.

"The church has a little bit of moral authority to show that politics is not just the art of the possible, but what is the best of the possible," said Ted Jelen, a professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and until recently the editor of the academic journal Politics and Religion.

But the failure to get a two-thirds agreement on a poverty statement "makes the church look like any other interest group," Jelen said. "It reminds people of the divisions among Catholic voters in general."

While Catholic voters overall supported President Obama over Republican nominee Mitt Romney (50 to 48 percent), 59 percent of white Catholics supported Romney, while 75 percent of Latino Catholics favored Obama, according to a post-election survey from the nonpartisan Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Health care split

The dissension comes after a presidential campaign where some bishops made provocative political statements, mostly over the guideline issued this year by the Department of Health and Human Services that directs employers to provide coverage of contraceptive services as part of their health insurance plans.

The federal government has said that houses of worship are exempt from the guideline and religiously affiliated institutions, such as Catholic schools and social service organizations, don't have to comply with the law until August while a compromise is sought.

In April, Peoria, Ill., Bishop Daniel Jenky said: "Obama - with his radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda - now seems intent on following a similar path" as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin in attacking the church.

"The bishops are very divided right now," said the Rev. Gerald Coleman, an adjunct professor of ethics at Santa Clara University who has advised California's Catholic bishops on ethical matters.

"Some are very focused on same-sex marriage, some are very focused on the contraception issue," Coleman said.

In the past months, the bishops have been influential on Capitol Hill. They helped to convince Republicans and Democrats to form what they called a "Circle of Protection" around federal programs that serve the poor, and spare them from mandatory budget cuts if Bush-era tax cuts expire at the end of the year.

In the spring, Blaire called out the House budget written by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who said that his Catholic upbringing informs his policy choices. Blaire said the House budget fails "a basic moral test."

"The moral failing is that (the budget) did not adequately provide for the care of the poor and the vulnerable," Blaire told The Chronicle at the time, emphasizing that that he was critiquing the budget Ryan shepherded and not Ryan personally.

Why he asked

This year, Blaire asked the bishops' conference to come up with a statement on poverty. His goal was threefold: He wanted to show that the church was sympathetic to people who were struggling; he hoped that it would show how church teaching requires helping the poor; and he intended to start a conversation that would lead others to help those in need.

But the document failed to reach the two-thirds majority required to pass. Some bishops and analysts said the 15-page document was too sprawling and unfocused. Others said it was rushed through the approval process. Some said it didn't take a strong enough stand or include enough input from secular economists.

Blaire pushed back against those who wondered why the church should be taking political positions at all.

"I know there are those who think that the church should just be preaching a pure gospel of Jesus and stay out of the realm of politics," Blaire said. "But it's important that we are involved in the real world and that we are a voice. We have as much right as anybody else to be a voice. And we seek to persuade. Sometimes we're persuasive and sometimes we're not persuasive."